Master System — Page 3

Asterix (MS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 11/06/2016 Written by deKay

Yes, it’s another 8bit platformer. But you know what? It’s another good one! When I originally played Asterix on an actual Master System (actually, that’s not true – I played it on a Mega Drive with a Power Base Convertor) I remember it being very easy, once you knew the levels, up until the section near the end of the game with the leaf ride in the wind and the spikes. Imagine my surprise when I realised my brain had totally made that level up and it didn’t appear anywhere in my playthrough.

How had I remembered something that didn’t exist? It’s my main memory of the game! That part was so hard that it’s stuck in my head for ever more, and yet it isn’t there. Bizarre.

For this play, I went through entirely as Asterix (aside from level 1-1 where you have to play through as both him and Obelix) as I seem to recall it’s easier and more fun. Mind you, I’d already misremembered a whole level so who knows.

I’m pleased to say that, a bit of slowdown aside, Asterix is still a pretty good platformer. Some levels – mainly forced scrolling ones – are less fun than others, but there’s a lot of secret areas to find and a few levels have alternate routes. It’s very much like the Mickey Mouse …of Illusion games, which I’d not really noticed before, but that’s no bad thing.

Click to view slideshow.

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Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars (MS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 04/06/2016 Written by deKay

I’ve completed two Alex Kidd games before – Miracle World on the Master System, and The Enchanted Castle (which is essentially a remake) on the Mega Drive. Neither were anything special, but they were both reasonably good platformers. I’ve briefly played some other Alex Kidd titles, but never finished them. However, I’d never played The Lost Stars before today.

Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars — A couple of pointers

It’s a very simple platformer. Alex Kidd doesn’t have his big punch move, the collision detection is ropey and although the levels are varied none of them are particularly impressive. The graphics are big and chunky and very colourful, so I expect this was a decent show-off title to NES owners back in the day even though it’s nowhere near the same level as things like Super Mario Bros or Duck Tales gameplay-wise. It also suffers from flicker and slowdown a little, although not so much that it bothered me.

Alex runs and jumps through the levels (and swims, in one of them) from left to right mainly avoiding enemies although he can fire a limited number of whirlwinds at them with the right power-up. Other power-ups include a time-limited higher jump and an item that replenishes the health/time bar. Yes, just like Wonder Boy, The Lost Stars has a stupid combined bar which slowly depletes by itself, buy also loses a chunk when you get hit. It was rubbish in Wonder Boy and it’s rubbish here.

Speaking of Wonder Boy, at least one of the levels here appears to be a homage to it. Some of the other levels also seem to borrow from other Sega games – I’m pretty sure there’s a Zillion themed area for one, and there’s an Opa-Opa hiding one of the “miracle balls” you have to collect.

On the final level, which has very low gravity making all the jumps incredibly easy, there’s no miracle ball, but completing it throws you back at the start of the game again. Only, unlike Teddy Boy, the levels become harder and there’s a second set of miracle balls to collect. Only by running through all the levels again (which I did) do you get the True Ending: a black screen with the words “The End” on it. That’s it. Thanks, Sega!

Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars is a mediocre game with very little in common with the other Alex Kidd games, it would seem. There are plenty of better Master System platformers (Miracle World, Sonic, Asterix, The Lucky Dime Caper, Castle of Illusion… the list goes on) so there’s very little here to recommend it. Still, it wasn’t terrible, so that’s something? Oh, and the FM sound is lovely, so make sure you use an emulator with that turned on if you do play it.

I’m still confused as to why it’s called The Lost Stars when it’s actually Miracle Balls you have to collect, though.

Click to view slideshow.

The post Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars (MS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Teddy Boy (MS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 04/06/2016 Written by deKay

Teddy Boy was one of the first Master System games I owned, mainly because it was under ten quid new, but I actually quite liked it. I’d never completed it though, and in fact I didn’t think you could complete it – I just thought it went on forever like arcade games of this sort generally did. However, over on RetroCollect someone posted they’d just completed it and I asked how – and it turns out the levels just loop round after level 50. Technically beating that level would count (to me) as completing the game then.

Way back when, I think a level somewhere in the 40s was about as far as I ever reached, so imagine my surprise when I managed to reach – and finish – level 50 on just my second attempt. On the first attempt I only made it to level 12 or so, but I quickly learned to be slow and cautious where possible, keep an eye out for the crocodiles especially, and always collect the little token things that come out of the baddies when shot otherwise they gobble up the time after a while. And the yellow bread things? You can’t take on more than one at a time.

Click to view slideshow.

I found Teddy Boy to still be fun game, much to my surprise. It’s very jolly and cute, even if very simple.

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Rainbow Islands (MS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 14/05/2016 Written by deKay

I got very close to completing Rainbow Islands on the Spectrum once. I think I put a cheat mode on and made it to a high level but it crashed. Since then, although I’ve played many versions thoughout the years, I’ve never come close as it’s just too hard.

Or so I thought. I read somewhere that the Master System version was, for whatever reason, quite a lot easier than other versions. Having played it, and (obviously) completed it today, I think whoever wrote that was right because it is. Sure, it’s not a walk in the park, but it was relatively straightforward.

I found that once you have the power-up that gives you a double rainbow (I presume the missing triple rainbow is due to technical issues – the game suffers greatly from flicker and slowdown as it is), providing you’re careful, almost every level is quite easy. All the bosses are pushovers with a double rainbow too, whereas when I’ve played before they were nigh on impossible. Of course, if you die you lose it, but another power-up to give it back tends to come along soon enough.

Another reason it’s so easy is that the water that forever chases you higher, and serves mainly to make you panic and die, takes much, much longer to make an appearance. I saw it just once in the entire game, and that was near the end when I fell about four screens downwards – I still outran it without difficulty though.

However, easiness aside: I didn’t get all the diamonds. That really is too hard. What I did do, though, is complete the seven worlds and then use the code that provides you with to unlock the eighth and final world, and then completed that. I may not have found all the diamonds but I did beat all the levels and bosses, so that’s good enough for me.

Click to view slideshow.

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Psycho Fox (MS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 10/04/2016 Written by deKay

I’d completely forgotten how easy the bosses were in Psycho Fox. In fact, I’d completely forgotten anything about the bosses at all, and I wasn’t even 100% sure there were any! Admittedly, much of the rest of the game is quite difficult (mainly because of so many leaps of faith or baddies that appear too quickly to react to), but the bosses? Complete walkovers.

That said, because I’m awesome and somehow managed to remember the locations of two warps despite not having played the game in probably 20 years or more, I actually skipped all bar two of them – the tigery one and the end of game boss.

Click to view slideshow.

I’d also forgotten just how many lives there are to collect, finishing the game with more than twenty – and I didn’t even get any in the after level bonus game! One part of the final level actually has three lives in eggs right next to each other. It probably helped that I managed to take the highest routes in most of the levels as that’s where most of them lurk.

It surprised me how good the game still is after all this time. The jumping takes a while to get used to (you jump very high, but not very far at all unless you take a run-up) and you’re a bit skiddy, but apart from that and the very old school rule of the game not scrolling left, it was still excellent and holds up well.

I think I’d like to give Kid Kool on the NES a go next. It’s a very similar game by the same team, and I’ve never played it.